


but who prays for satan

by VeryImportantDemon



Series: the moon is the same wherever you go [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: A little angst, Chloe KNOWS, Deckerstar - Freeform, F/M, Hell, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Lucifer, Lucifer is also an angel which he sometimes forgets, Lucifer is lonely, Post Season 4, Trixie Decker & Lucifer Morningstar Friendship, Trixie also knows, its angsty but hopeful at the same time, prayers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 18:03:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19011034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeryImportantDemon/pseuds/VeryImportantDemon
Summary: Lucifer hears a prayer, which he should not be able to do.





	but who prays for satan

**Author's Note:**

> There’s whispers of a plot worked in, but this could easily stand by itself! That’s why I’m posting it and the (hopefully) ensuing parts as separate fics. Title is taken from a Mark Twain quote

It’s exceptionally lonely at the top, Lucifer thinks. His throne is the perfect vantage point to gaze upon the wonders of his kingdom from, but it’s lonely. He’s gotten used to company on Earth. Good company, people he wants to talk to and spend time with and not just sleep with. Up on his tall tower, he misses them.

 

He feels pain, a pain deep in his chest. It confuses him at first, why he’s aching, before he realizes it’s because he misses Earth and he misses people. He doesn’t know how long it’s been for them, but it feels as if it’s been years in Hell. Years and his chest burns every day, burns like he’s falling all over again, but it’s inside this time. He’s become so human that he’s homesick for a place he can never go back to, for a pair of arms that he can never return to. 

 

There’s another pain, too. A pain that he isn’t feeling just because he is missing something he can’t have. It’s a physical pain. It starts slow with a simple feeling of discomfort. But the longer he stays in Hell, the more it intensifies. His skin burns and his head pounds and when he breathes in it’s like the air is fire. But Lucifer doesn’t know why it’s burning him.

 

Lucifer has never wanted more to be something that he is not. 

 

Or, he thinks in the privacy of his isolation where he spends most of his time, maybe he is human. He has changed so much since he came to Los Angeles. Maybe this is part of some grander plan. Maybe his father really is that cruel that he put Chloe in Lucifer’s path to make him love her, make Lucifer realize there is something human in his divine, and then take it away. 

 

It certainly is a masterful torture. He never could have come up with something that good.

 

Mostly Lucifer only hears his own voice. He talks to himself, sings, pretends he’s playing his piano. He doesn’t like spending time among the demonic population below him like he once had. They have nothing for him now. They can’t give him even half of what his memories can. He is so used to hearing only his own voice that when another one cuts through the darkness, it startles him so badly he almost falls off of his throne.

 

“Bloody hell,” he said, pulling on the lapels of his coat to straighten them.The voice, after its first burst of unintelligible noise, has faded into buzzing, like a badly tuned radio. “What in Dad’s name is that? Who are you?” 

 

It’s only when Lucifer stops talking that the voice gets clearer. 

 

_ Most people pray to God,  _ the voice says. Lucifer frowns. A prayer? Why is he hearing a prayer? Perhaps it is something he’s always been able to do, hear prayers like his brothers and sisters can, but it isn’t something he’s ever done. No one prays to the Devil.

 

_ But I don’t want to talk to God,  _ the little voice continues. It’s loud enough now that he makes out that it is a little girl. A little girl praying to him.  _ I want to talk to you, Lucifer. _

 

His frown deepens as the prayer continues. The voice is familiar, an itch in the back of his mind, but he can’t place it. 

 

_ You’re a real angel,  _ the girl says,  _ because you told me so. Remember? And you don’t lie. And I asked Miss Ella if angels can hear prayers, and she says they can.  _

 

Miss Ella. The pieces of the puzzle snap into place. Miss Ella is Ella Lopez and the little girl praying to him is Beatrice. 

 

Lucifer forces his turbulent thoughts to quiet because he doesn’t want to miss a word of this prayer, a word of this miracle that he shouldn’t be experiencing. 

 

_ So I wanted to pray to you. So I could say hi. You’ve been gone for a real long time. Mommy wouldn’t tell me where you went. She still misses you. And I miss you. And Maze and Miss Linda and Amen… Amendid… Amenadiel.  _

 

Lucifer can’t help but smile a little at the detective's child trying to pronounce his brother’s name.

 

_ Oh, and also Charlie, I think. But he’s just a baby so it’s hard to tell. But I miss you a lot and I just want you to know that if you’re alone wherever you are, Lucifer, that you’re not, really. Cause I still love you.  _

 

“Oh, dear,” Lucifer murmurs to himself because who else is there to hear him. “It appears I am not the only one not enjoying this little sojourn of mine.”

 

The voice doesn’t speak again for a few moments and in that time Lucifer thinks he’s finally gone crazy. Beatrice hadn’t prayed to him. He’d imagined her voice. Who prays to the Devil?

 

But then she speaks again, her voice high and excited.  _ Lucifer, is that you? _

 

“Of course, child,” he says. “You asked for me.”

 

_ Are you okay?  _ she asks.  _ Where did you go? _

 

Of course she asked after his well-being first. She was the detective’s spawn, after all. 

 

“I’m alright, child,” he says. It isn’t a lie because he doesn’t lie. But he can withhold information from her because she is still a child. She doesn’t need to know the lack of contact with Earth, with anyone, is chipping away at him. She doesn’t need to know the very air is burning his skin and his chest aches from loneliness and desire and the pain from breathing fire. He doesn’t tell her that Hell is, well, hell. “I had to go home for awhile.”

 

_ But you’re not home,  _ she says.  _ Your home is here, with Mommy and Maze and me. And your brother.  _

 

The Devil himself, struck dumb by a child, he thinks. She is right. “My old home,” he amends. “Where I lived before I came to Los Angeles.” 

 

_ You mean Hell?  _

 

“Yes, actually,” Lucifer said, his lip curling slightly into a smile. He hadn’t smiled in a long time. “Did your mother tell you who I was?” 

 

_ No,  _ the girl said.  _ You did. I believed you. ‘Sides, Maze showed me her real face one time. It was cool.  _

 

Lucifer can’t help but laugh. Children were odd. The entire time he had spent on Earth he never hid who he was. No one believed him, but Beatrice had.

 

_ You have to be a real angel, anyway,  _ Beatrice continues.  _ I’m praying to you and you’re answering.  _

 

“I suppose you are right,” Lucifer said. “Your mother called me an angel, once.”

 

_ Oh, Mommy!  _ Beatrice says.  _ Mommy misses you lots. I have to tell her that she can talk to you! _

 

Lucifer can’t deny that he is very pleased with the thought of speaking to Chloe. His lips tingle with the remembered kiss. How he misses her. 

 

“Beatrice?” he says. 

 

_ Lucifer? _

 

“Thank you,” he says. “For believing in me.”

 

_ No problem,  _ she says, and there is nothing but silence. He feels empty, like a connection is severed. When he talks to Beatrice, there is something extra in his mind, his chest, something that makes him feel full. But now it is gone.

 

Losing her voice is like a punch to the stomach. It physically hurts him to draw breath and there’s something on his cheek. For a split second, he thinks it’s tears. He reaches up, touching his face. His fingertips come away red.

 

“Bloody hell,” he says. He’s bleeding. The constant pain flares up and he doubles over, one arm wrapping around his stomach. He coughs, splattering his hand with blood. Frantically, he wipes his hand on his pants. The blood is gone, but there’s a red patch on his hand. A burn. 

 

He’s falling apart. 

 

He remembers the feeling, fresh from his Fall. He remembers screaming in agony with every inch of his flesh charred, his wings blackened, and Hell only making him angrier and causing him more pain. It took him years to build up his resistance so the very air wasn’t poison. Whatever he had, he doesn’t have it now. 

 

Hell is killing him. 

 

Lucifer doesn’t have any more time to muse on his impending and ironic doom because there’s another voice in his head, a voice saying his name over and over and over. 

 

_ Lucifer,  _ she says.  _ Lucifer, Lucifer. I need you. Lucifer, please. Are you there? Trixie said… Are you there? _

 

It’s the detective, it’s Chloe, and his heart is breaking. 

 

“Detective,” he says, trying to maintain some semblance being collected. Like he doesn’t miss her just as much as she misses him. Like being in Hell isn't literally and figuratively killing him.

 

_ Lucifer, oh my God,  _ Chloe says.  _ Your voice. It’s so good to hear your voice, I thought…  _

 

“You’d never hear it again?” Lucifer lets the Dad joke fall unsaid. There are far more important things to cover. 

 

_ Yes,  _ Chloe breathes.  _ I miss you.  _

 

“And I you,” he says. “It has been quite miserable here. I hadn’t spoken to a soul since I arrived until I was contacted by Beatrice.”

 

_ I had no idea,  _ Chloe says.

 

“Neither did I,” Lucifer says. “In all my millennium, not a single person has prayed to me.”

 

_ I need to tell Amenadiel,  _ Chloe says. 

 

Lucifer sighs. “And why must we bring brother dearest into what was an otherwise touching moment?” 

 

_ He’s been trying to help. Looking for a way to prevent demons from coming to Earth that doesn’t involve you in Hell.  _

 

Lucifer is secretly touched his brother is trying to free him when not too long ago his sole purpose was to drag Lucifer back to Hell kicking and screaming if necessary. “How exactly does he plan to do that?” Lucifer asks. 

 

_ I don’t know,  _ Chloe confesses.  _ He says he may know someone who can take over. Take your place and leave you free to come back.  _

 

Lucifer actually laughs at the suggestion. He laughs until the pressure builds in his chest and the agony, forgotten in the euphoria of Chloe’s voice, returns. He tastes iron and grips the stone arms of his throne so tightly he hears a crack form. “Who in their right mind would want to do that?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady. 

 

_ I don’t know,  _ she says.  _ He mentioned a relative. Lucifer, are you alright?  _

 

He can’t tell half-truths, can’t avoid things with her like he can with Beatrice. “No,” he says. “I want to come home.”

 

_ I know,  _ Chloe says, her voice soft and gentle and everything he needs. He misses her so, so much.  _ I want you here, too.  _

 

Neither of them speak for a stretch but the comfortable weight of the connection of the prayer is still there. He isn’t entirely alone.

 

“Can I ask you something?” Lucifer says finally. 

 

_ Of course,  _ Chloe says.  _ Anything.  _

 

“Did you mean what you told me?” he says, his tongue suddenly a weight in his mouth. “When you’d said you loved me?”

 

Chloe doesn’t hesitate to answer.  _ Yes,  _ she says.  _ Yes, I did.  _

 

Lucifer lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. The entire time he has spent in Hell he has spent wondering if she was telling the truth. 

 

“Ah,” Lucifer says. “Good. Good, because… I mean it, too.”

 

Chloe laughs softly and that makes Lucifer smile wider. 

 

_ I have to go talk to Amenadiel,  _ she says.  _ Lucifer… _

 

“Chloe,” he prompts. 

 

_ Hold on, okay? I can’t wait to see you again.  _

 

“Neither can I,” Lucifer says. 

 

The same pain from when Beatrice concluded her prayer returns. Lucifer is aching, bleeding, burning. He is dying, somehow, but there is something else in his chest. 

 

Hope. 


End file.
